The reality is they can scrape the content for “free” into another database without using API’s index it and then train off it. A high price tag is not a road block for AI development. The just need real user interactions and it’s the moderated forums that make it valuable as most toxicity is removed.

Maybe, this is the day the CEO goes…“hmm, maybe I was wrong, and communities are important to reddit, and the value of free moderation far out weighs my API idiocy”, but probable not because CEO tend to be self centered, sociopaths so will most likely double down. Good let’s just move to lemmy and mastodon get federation working between them and get rid of centralized corporate internet that always screws their communities after we create the value.